As recovery mission ends, families begin to grieve, remember

Mar. 16, 2013

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The family of Lyle Eagletail grieves after his body was recovered from the Big Sioux River below the falls at Falls Park in Sioux Falls, S.D. Saturday, March 16, 2013. Eagletail and 16-year-old Madison Wallace dove into the water on Thursday to rescue 6-year-old Garrett Wallace who did survive. Madison's body was recovered on Friday afternoon. / Elisha Page / Argus Leader

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Searchers recovered the body of Lyle Eagletail of Sioux Falls shortly before 2 p.m. Saturday from the Big Sioux River at Falls Park.

He was found not far downstream from where he entered the river late Thursday afternoon in an effort to save Garrett Wallace, 6, who appeared to have fallen in near the pedestrian bridge at the base of the falls.

Eagletail, 28, and Madison Wallace, 16, of Vermillion drowned when they sought to save Garrett, Madison’s younger brother. While the boy either was helped from the river or scrambled out, his rescuers slipped beneath thick ice at the base of the falls.

Wallace’s body was recovered Friday, and Eagletail’s body was found near her upstream in about 12 feet of water, close to the east bank of the river and about 100 feet from a low-head dam.

Searchers Saturday morning set out a grid, starting at the dam and working back toward the falls, with boats at each end and divers in the middle.

At about 2:10 p.m., a half-dozen firefighters from Sioux Falls Fire Rescue unfurled a large blue tarp and held it up as a screen as an aluminum boat slowly made its way across the river, and about four people in the boat bore Eagletail’s body to land and briefly along the west riverbank to an ambulance that immediately left the park.

About two dozen family and friends, many wrapped in blankets against a 23-degree temperature and brisk north wind, had watched the recovery effort since morning from a vantage near the park visitors center. As searchers stretched the blue tarp, the watchers began to move, almost driven it seemed, downhill toward the river, and a wailing broke out among them.

As the ambulance departed, they moved as a group back up the hill. At the head, two women helped a third who cried, “I want to see him. I want to see my son,” and collapsed on the park’s cold lawn.

Helm said searchers discovered Eagletail’s body in a portion of the river that already had been searched. It underscored the difficulty of the recovery effort carried out in cold, murky water on a riverbed littered with debris and corrugated with seams and fissures in its quartzite base, he said. Helm called attention to the sharply jumbled rocks visible at the head of the falls and said divers described a similar scene underwater in the area they searched.

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Searchers in a boat probing with rescue poles discovered the body.

“Something didn’t feel right down there,” said Helm, and divers were called to the scene and brought Eagletail’s body to the surface.

As the search concluded and the approximately 45 participants began to pack up equipment, Helm talked of the victims’ families.

“I can only imagine the feelings they are going through, and Madison’s family. Our condolences,” he said. “We are trying to keep them informed and what the next steps are.”

He said searchers were prepared to carry on until they found Eagletail’s body, and the discovery at least provides needed closure for family members and for searchers.

“We know we have done all we can. He can have a proper burial, and things like that,” Helm said.

After the ambulance left, Eagletail’s family and friends gathered in a tight semi-circle outside the visitors center and conducted a ceremony including the use of a pipe and the burning of sage. The Rev. Ward Simpson, dean of Calvary Cathedral in Sioux Falls, joined them. He said Eagletail was not part of the Calvary Cathedral congregation, but extended family members asked him to come to the park. He said family members from Rapid City, Wanblee and Minneapolis were at the park.

“The family is scattered quite a distance,” Simpson said. “Service arrangements are pending. That’s all I can tell you.” He said he did not know if a service would take place in Sioux Falls.

“I’d be happy to minister to the family however I can. But my guess is they will go back to their family home.”

Wallace is the daughter of Jay and Lara Wallace of Vermillion. A funeral service will take place for her 7 p.m. March 19 at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Vermillion. Visitation will begin at 5 p.m.